


Lunch Dates

by Anonymous



Category: Captain Underpants Series - Dav Pilkey, The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Co-workers, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Holding Hands, Hugs, Maybe - Freeform, Melvinborg pre-time travel, Reader is an engineer, Reader is mid-twenties, could be read as friendship, kinky i know, published as anonymous becuase this is probably the dumbest thing I've ever written, purely wholesome, though maybe you can guess anyway i dunno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25040563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: You had been working at this tech company for a while now, but this was the first time you had seenhimhere. Out of curiosity and loneliness, you find yourself sitting at his table during lunch. You like talking to him, but will he ever open up to you?
Relationships: Female Reader & Melvinborg, Female Reader/Melvinborg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Anonymous





	Lunch Dates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the Amino](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=the+Amino).



> For the record, this was written as a gift when a lot of people complained about the lack of good xReader fics, and like a dummy I volunteered my skills.

You’ve been working at this tech company for awhile now. Even then, you don’t know many of your co-workers and you often spend your breaks by yourself in the breakroom, working on projects or just daydreaming. 

One day, you walk into the breakroom with your lunch, your eyes already fixed on your laptop as you walked, but you quickly realize that today, you aren’t alone in the room. Sitting in the corner is a man you hadn’t seen here before. Was he new here, maybe? He’s a ginger with glasses, pretty normal for one of the engineers, really. But as you turn towards your usual seat, you notice -- shocked but intrigued -- that half of him is robotic, one eye a glowing yellow and his face evenly split between human and metallic. You pause and stare, enthralled by the strange but amazing sight in front of you, until he looks up from his work and you look away, blushing. You hope he didn’t see you staring. 

The next day, you go into the room, and he’s there again, at the same place by himself, hunched over a crowded table of blueprints with a focused expression. This time you catch yourself staring before he can look up. You wonder about him, but don’t say anything out loud, instead moving back to your seat. But while you work and eat your lunch, you keep glancing his way. 

He’s there the next day, and the next day, too. Always the same spot, always by himself. (Despite most likely being on his lunch break, you never seem to see him there with a lunch.) After a week, you’re going to pass by him wordlessly like you always do, but today you pause. He always seems so lonely sitting there by himself. And you’re always lonely eating your lunch. What if, today, you did something different? Swerving in your path, you move to sit at the same table as him, instead of in your usual spot. 

“What are you doing?” he asks critically almost as soon as you set your things down, and this close you can see his robotic eye narrow. You’re thrown off by the hostility, and his appearance, for a moment -- jeez what’d you do to him?-- but decide to sit down anyway. 

“Sitting” you reply innocently as you get out your lunch and set up your laptop across from his pile of papers. 

“Why?” he asks in the same tone, glaring at you and communicating very strongly that he wanted you to leave. 

You decide to tell him the truth. “You looked lonely” you reply matter of factly, shrugging. 

The sentence has the opposite effect than you would expect, and his glare shifts from annoyed to downright angry at your observation, “I don’t need pity from  _ you _ , you stuck lego. Go sit at your own table”. 

You almost decide to leave, and stand up, but as you do you catch a glimpse of the blueprints, and are overcome with curiosity. “What are you working on?” you can’t help but ask. 

Even though he had been angry before, at the question he seems to relax some, looking pleasantly surprised (er, you’re pretty sure. It’s a little hard to get a read on the expression of his robotic eye. Which brings up a whole different curiosity but you get the feeling it’s not something you should just ask about out of the blue.). 

Apparently he’s ok with the question, because he immediately launches into a detailed explanation of his invention, gesturing emphatically at the blueprints, and you muse bemusedly that he sounds like a completely different person. You gladly listen as he goes on, describing this invention and its purposes and soon getting into a tangent about his past projects. It’s certainly better than sitting alone at your table, and you learn that if you get on a subject he likes he is a lot less antagonistic. As your lunch break ends, you grab your things, but realize that you don’t even know his name. 

“It was nice sitting with you” you tell him somewhat shyly, and he cuts himself off mid-explanation, looking at you slightly dazedly, as if he had forgotten that someone else had been sitting there. Taking a breath, you add, “I’m [Y/N], by the way”. 

He looks at you distrustfully for a moment, eyes narrowing, but soon returns, in a more stilted voice than he had been using for the past twenty minutes, “Melvin Sneedly”. 

You smile, clutching your laptop closer to your chest, replying, “Nice to meet you”. He doesn’t say anything in response, except to stare at you critically, looking almost like there was something he was struggling to figure out. You want to talk more, but you look at the time and realize that you should have been back at work five minutes ago. Instead you offer, “See you tomorrow!” as you turn and leave the room. He says nothing, but watches as you leave. 

The next day, true to your word, you sit back at his table again. When Melvin sees you sit down, he rolls his eyes, commenting, “Oh. You again”. 

“Yep. Me again” you retort playfully, sitting back down where you had yesterday. 

“I suppose this means you intend to keep bothering me” he sighs, leaning onto his hand and looking up to the ceiling in exaggerated exasperation. 

You shrug. “If it really upsets you I can leave. But I kinda think you want to be bothered. You didn’t mind our conversation yesterday” you can’t help but point out. 

“Well, you happened to choose an actually intellectual and interesting topic of conversation yesterday” he admits, fidgeting slightly and shuffling several of the papers in front of him. 

“So we can talk about that again” you suggest, “I don’t mind. I wouldn’t be working here if I didn’t find engineering interesting, you know”. Under your breath, looking off to the side you mutter, “It’s better than sitting by myself, anyway”. 

As you look back up at him, you find him giving you a thoughtful look, and you’re immediately embarrassed. He heard that last remark, didn’t he? Hoping to change the subject, you ask, “So, what are you working on today?” 

He doesn’t seem to notice that you’re deflecting, and gladly goes off on another tangent about his current project. And it really is much nicer than sitting all by yourself. 

It becomes a regular thing, and after a week he even stops pretending to be mad about it. By a week and a half you don’t have to coax him into conversation anymore, and you think that he actually enjoys your company. The weeks pass, one after another, and sitting next to him on your lunch break has become a highlight of your day. He always has something to talk about, usually inventing-wise, not that you really mind. 

“Are all of these inventions for work?” you ask him, amazed at how, even after almost two months, he seemed to be working on a different project every day that you ask him. 

“Well, no” he replies, looking unreasonably embarrassed for a second, “Many of these are personal projects. The, uh, ethics board would hardly approve of them” he admits somewhat guiltily. 

“Should I be worried?” you ask teasingly. 

“No” he protests, but then adds after a moment of thought, “Weeeell, not exactly, at any rate. Most of my inventions are perfect, it’s nothing to worry about”. 

“How many inventions do you even  _ have _ ?”

He pauses thoughtfully, counting off on his fingers and presumably going through a mental list. “Somewhere in the thousands, though even  _ I  _ can’t keep track of everything” he finally answers. 

“So, um” you ask nervously, “is, um, that” you gesture vaguely at his robotic half, “one of your inventions, too?” 

“Oh, this?” he asks casually, clenching and unclenching his mechanical hand, “Of course it is. I’m not going to let anyone else design a body for me, not that they even could. Admittedly, it was a bit difficult at first, but there’s nothing my intellect can’t resolve”.

It’s the first time you’ve outwardly mentioned his cyborg-ness, and, biting your lip, you figure that if you don’t ask now you might not ever. “Why are you--I mean how did you…” you trail off, overwhelmed with curiosity but not wanting to overstep any boundaries. You’ve been talking for a couple months, but you still aren’t entirely sure where the lines are. His expression falls darkly from his previous smug grin, and you immediately regret asking. 

“It doesn’t matter” he snaps, suddenly angry. You’re taken aback a bit by how quickly he changed. One second he’s adorkably going on about inventions and joking about the ethics committee, and the next he’s looking...scary. 

Even though you’re still curious (and now a bit concerned),you decide to just let it go. He clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, but you keep thinking about it even as you say your goodbyes and go back to work. It worries you.  _ He’s _ starting to worry you, the closer you get to him. You decide to not bring this up again. At least, not unless he decides to tell you. 

Later, you don’t bring up the conversation, and things have settled back into their sort of normalcy that you had reached. You’ve gotten onto the subject of school, and he had a lot to say on it. 

“And then they had the  _ audacity _ to claim that 8-bit wasn’t an actual genre of music! I was planning to crash the dance later and show them all the glory of retro-futuristic 8-bit, but, uh, things got complicated” 

You laugh at the story, one in a string of anecdotes about his old elementary school, and comment, “Man, your school sounds like it really sucked” 

“The understatement of the millenia” he scoffs, angrily reflecting as he stared down at the table. 

“It’s lame that no one seemed to want to hear about what you liked” you offer sympathetically. 

“Yes, well, they were all just too dense to understand its greatness, anyway” he criticizes, but his sarcastic look has turned more genuinely angry. “I didn’t need any of them, anyway. Friends are a waste of time and brain cells” he grumbles angrily. 

“Did--” you ask, shocked by what you had heard, “didn’t you have any friends? Even later, in middle or high school?” 

“No” he replies sharply, “As I said, I didn’t need them. And they were all a bunch of liars and traitors that wouldn’t have been worth my time anyway.” 

Even though he keeps his tone angry, you can’t help but feel like there’s more to the story. (By now you’ve noticed that  _ angry _ usually means the same thing as  _ hurt  _ with him. Your heart clenches as you think about what that plus the “liar” comment could entail. No matter how you try to picture it, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture of his childhood.) 

More quietly, but no less scathing, he adds, “They didn’t like me, and I didn’t like them. And that’s  _ fine _ . I didn’t want to be friends with imbeciles anyway”. 

He scoffs bitterly, his arms crossed over his latest blueprint, and looks away without further comment. You worry about him, you really do. He tries to act angry and wave it off, but by now you know him better than that. Reaching across the table, you lay a hand on his arm, by chance placing it on his robotic arm. (You try to ignore the warmth that grows in your face at the cool of the metal). 

“I...like you” you tell him earnestly, your face still burning, even though you don’t really have a reason to be embarrassed. “You can be angry and difficult” you say with a teasing grin, but it evens out into a more honest expression, “But, talking with you, getting to know you, you’re a good guy. You’re passionate, and unique, and funny. So, even if those jerk kids never liked you...I do”. 

You hope desperately that some part of what you say will reach him. He’s still looking away, but his posture has sagged. You don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. 

It was a bad thing. 

“I have to get back to work” he snaps stiltedly, and you wilt as he shakes your hand off and stands up. He walks away, and for a moment you're left to just sit there and worry your lip, wondering what went wrong. You were just trying to be nice, why’d he run off like that? If he was going to be like that, you think for a moment, maybe you should just let him leave. But you immediately realize that that’s  _ always  _ what everyone’s said. It strikes you then, thinking back on what he said, that he’s probably been through this before. 

Determinedly, you rise from your chair and follow after him. He had been left behind by enough people already. You weren’t about to be one of those people. It was about time someone showed him that they truly cared. Dashing into the hall, you run after him, and before he can comment you practically tackle into him from behind with a hug. 

He stands stock-still, shock written across his face, and you squeeze a little harder at the knowledge that he has to feel surprised when someone wants to hug him. 

“What are you doing?” he tries to huff, but his voice breaks a little at the end, and as you crane your neck to look into his eyes (and they are so close all of the sudden. His human eye is so close and so blue, and you inexplicably feel your face heat up again), you can tell that the human one is glossy, and even the robotic one is smaller than usual and dim, the closest it gets to crying. 

“Showing you that I mean it” you tell him almost fiercely, and if you weren’t so worried you’d be amused by the almost scared look he gives you in return, “I like you, and you matter to me”. 

He seems more shocked by that, if anything, and stammers, unable to think of a reply. You finally release him from your bear hug, but quickly swing around and grab his hand to keep him by you. It’s his human hand, and it’s hot and sweaty, but you hold it tighter anyway, because  _ someone  _ should. He looks down at where your hand has wrapped around his, with that same shocked expression, but after a moment of thought tenitavely squeezes back. 

And when he looks back at you he is desperate, and his hand clings to yours like it’s that of a drowning man’s, and his eyes--even his robotic one-- scream out his loneliness. You can’t help it, you embrace him again, hoping that you can do a little bit to chase away some of that loneliness. His hands hover a moment, before hesitantly wrapping around you and holding you a bit closer. It’s not a comfortable hug, he obviously gives them very rarely and the metal side of his chest is cold and unyielding, but you don’t move. He needs this. 

For a while you both stand there, neither saying anything and taking no notice as the world trickles by around you up and down the hall. But he soon clears his throat and pushes you off. But he doesn’t leave, and the two of you stand in the hall, his gaze darting around the hallway on anything except you and his human face a bright red. 

“You alright?” you ask him, and you don’t just mean in this moment you mean in general. The question catches his attention and he finally looks at you, his robotic eye readjusting to get back to normal while he rubs at his human eye. 

He looks, for a moment, like he’s going to speak, and you hope that he does. You want him to be able to trust you, to be able to talk about it. Your heart sinks a little when he just crosses his arms and spits out, “I’m fine”. As if he  _ wasn’t  _ just clinging to you like his life depended on it and nearly breaking down crying in the middle of the office halls. You want to push it, you really do. If you could just get him to open up you know it would be good for him. But you know him better than that. If you insist he’ll just get angry and then you’ll be back where you started. 

So you just sigh patiently and offer him an understanding smile (and are you seeing things or is he blushing again?), “Ok” you choose to say, daringly moving to grab his hand again. He gives you a look, but doesn’t shake you off, and you smile wider at that. It’s progress. He’s been through a lot, but you’re determined to earn his trust eventually. 


End file.
